SoCal Minds

Can retail clinics, urgent care save billions in ER costs?

From RAND

With media reports building, again, by the day about an overcrowding crisis in the jammed and underfunded emergency rooms across Los Angeles county, the folks in Santa Monica offer another piece to the health dire care puzzle, asserting that as many as 17% of the ER visits nationwide could be handled, instead, at retail medical clinics or private urgent care centers. If this were to occur, there also would be an estimated $4.4 billion saving in annual health care costs for the country, they say. They note their research comes with a caveat or two because it's unclear whether existing clinics, often manned by nurse practitioners at pharmacies, groceries and even some mega-retailers, actually offer the care hours to take on as many potential patients as envisioned. Still, previous studies of ERs, retail clinics and urgent care facilities have shown that the private facilities certainly end up costing less for care that, generally speaking, turns out to be as satisfactory as that given after loooong waits in emergency rooms; it is, however, unclear whether patients possess the discernment to know the medical limits of the kind of care given at retail clinics and urgent care facilities. But certainly if greater emergency room capacity could be freed up, particularly with affordable shifts to acceptable private medical facilities, that could be huge for not only patients in major, sudden medical need but also for taxpayers who so frequently bear the brunt of the huge cost of providing lesser care in ERs designed for trauma response and the desperately ill. 

Sizable percentage of emergency room cases could be shifted to other facilities

Green tomorrow a front and center focus on campuses

From UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, Loyola Marymount, Occidental, Cal Poly Pomona, CSULB & Chapman

For those in northern climes, will global warming offer surprising boon?

It's not exactly an expected scenario. And, at root, it speaks to a vast global divide that will occur, experts say, due to dire circumstances associated with global warming: Those who live in what's now a vast, often desolate and lesser developed frigid northern climes will find themselves in a newly prosperous, resource rich, probably more affluent and favored zone of the planet when the global environment warms and shifts, a Bruin geographer predicts. This will lead to Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States, he says, suddenly becoming beckoning havens, spots with, perhaps, the only abundant supplies of fresh water, abundant population growth and almost miraculously released natural resources, such as oil and gas supplies. Meantime, he sees wet places on earth getting wetter and parched spots getting even more so, with little cheery news at all for many of the highly populated spots on the present planet. He forecasts China as the world's economic superpower by 2050, with the U.S. sliding into the No. 2 spot and the longer rise of cities north of the 45th parallel. Los Angeles and other spots will still be major population centers and more folks will still be in traditional population centers but look to Seattle, Minneapoli-St. Paul, Toronto, Copenhagen, Moscow and other northern burghs to be the capitals of the climate change tomorrow.

A sunny forecast for northern lands in the era of drastic global climate change

Can student commuters find eco alternatives to cars, crowded parking?

• Now that Labor Day has come and gone and the calendar marks the end of summer, tens of thousands of students across the Southland have or soon will be racing back to campus, all too often commuting across considerable distances, one to a car, to get to classes and a higher education. And, if the responses from 500 students studied for a Fullerton research project are indicative at all, driving -- and especially stashing that car in costly, chaotic, congested parking -- is no fun at all for young people, who argue they have little choice about how they get to school. Three-quarters of those Orange County students motor to school, alone, researchers, including Edwin Shin and Jessica Watson, found in Prof. Ray Young's urban planning course. (Shin and Watson flank Young in Karen Tapia photo at right) Here's another big finding, though: Students who take public transportation or who bike or walk to school are much more satisfied with their commuting experience. The students involved in the academic research on commuting offered their own suggestions on how to provide incentives to get their peers out of the car-parking-commuting snaggle. In Westchester and Eagle Rock, though, school officials have taken one small step to cut down on the presence of so many vehicles, working, as many other campuses have, to provide the Zipcar program. The vehicle-sharing program aims to allow not only students but also neighbors to sign up for relatively affordable, short-term rental of cars.

In Fullerton, proof that the headache list often tops out with cars for commuting, campus parking

In Eagle Rock, a new sharing option for those who need a car only rarely

In Westchester, a way to cut congestion, parking through vehicle sharing program

How to power up, track better campus environmental programs

•  As long as there's going to be huge demand for big expanses to park student commuters' cars, well, why shouldn't such spots do double-duty and provide campus shade and solar generating spots, too? In Pomona, two new installations on the roof of a school gym (shown in photo at right) and with a canopy over a parking lot will help the school chip away at becoming 'carbon neutral.' The leased equipment, which also comes with grants and subsidies, will generate roughly 1.8 kilowatt hours of electricity annually for the campus, which has an annual, total electric consumption of some 45 million kilowatt hours, school officials say. But how best to monitor and encourage green practices at institutions of higher education? In Long Beach, where the school spends more than $7.5 million annually on utility costs, officials have created an intern program to help both track and spread best environmental practices with efforts such as a fall audit of classroom energy use and a residence hall competition to see which dorm can conserve the most power. And, in Orange, school officials are touting their participation in a new, 230-institution 'sustainability' program, which aims to provide greater accounting and transparency about campuses' environmental and conservation efforts. An aim of the 'STARS' program, in which the Orange County folks also hope to win some key certifications, is to provide an alternative to some existing efforts, which have drawn considerable criticism for their evaluation methods and seemingly punitive rating systems.

In Pomona, solar power arrays start popping up all over 

In Long Beach, interns help campus push its green programs

In Orange, joining up with consortium's new, more open monitoring of green campus efforts

A campus pulpit for preacher-teacher of nonviolent change

From CSUN

He's credited as a key theoretician and tactician of nonviolence in the U.S. civil rights movement, a friend and ally of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and the teacher of iconic figures including John Lewis and Diane Nash. A onetime conscientious objector whose peaceful activism led to his ejection from teaching at Vanderbilt, which was so embarrassed by the action that it not only invited him back later but made him senior faculty, he led one of Los Angeles' notable African American church congregations before retiring after a quarter century. And now, the Rev. James Lawson Jr. (shown at left), who has opposed the Iraq war and supported the rights of immigrants and Palestinians and workers seeking a 'living wage,' will join the folks in Northridge for a year as a visiting scholar dedicated to pursuing a campus dialogue about 'civil discourse and social change.' Lawson's eight public lectures, starting with one on Sept. 13, and his facilitation of eight student workshops are, advocates say, part of the school's effort to ensure the campus community has the capacity to deal well with divisive national issues, including the current economic crisis, education budget cuts, and battles over the roles of diverse groups -- including gays, immigrants and people of color -- in contemporary society.

In Northridge, a visiting scholar post and new mission for the Rev. James Lawson

A key Rx for future MDs: learning compassion, humanism

From UCI & UCLA

At a time when the quality of health care has become not only a central, crushing economic and political issue but also a worry of so many at deeply personal levels, it's interesting to note an opposing strand in medical education -- how to ensure that doctors remain empathic, compassionate people and not just brutally efficient and cost-effective dispensers of treatment. In Irvine, for example, the school says it has received grant-funding to support a 19-week program to train anesthesiologists on the importance of the human element for patients, before, during and after they undergo surgery. Advocates say that research shows a clear connection between successful medical outcomes and doctors' abilities to ease patients' anxiety and to treat them well as people. In Westwood, meantime, artists are collaborating with medical educator as part of a four-year 'doctoring program,' that tries to keep humanism, empathy and compassion at the core of the training of tomorrow's caregivers. Among the creative efforts are displays and discussions of art works that aim to help aspiring physicians to understand what it's like and means to be seriously ill, including paintings by Ted Meyer (shown at right) that capture his own challenges with a rare genetic disorder as well as the enlightening experiences of Joy Mincey Powell with her spinal scars and broken back (she's shown at left along with a piece from Meyer's 'Scarred for Life' series); showing now are works by San Diego artist Daphne Hill that offer her different perspective on 'venereal narratives.'

In Irvine, grant will support lessons in humanism for aspiring anestheseologists

In Westwood, artists join medical educators to keep compassion at the fore

A safe, restful, fun Labor Day to all ...

Nothing's better for the SoCal mind than an occasional break. Enjoy the long weekend, all. No posts until we're all back to the workaday grind.

2 big breakthroughs for women in science, engineering

From Caltech & Harvey Mudd

Have ya come a long way, baby? Well, to reposition that catch phrase of a cigarette-maker targeting women, there are glimmers of female advancement in one of the bruising mostly male, professional bastions -- the areas of science and engineering. Take, for example, the presentation by the fellas in Pasadena of the prestigious International von Karman Wings Award, one of the institution's highest to, gasp, a woman for the first time. Yes, Joanne Maguire, of Lockheed Martin Space Systems Co., is the first female in the prize's quarter-century history to be honored for her 'sustained and visionary accomplishments in aerospace,' and her 'leadership in advanced-technology systems for national security, civil, and commercial markets, including projects on human space flight systems, communication satellites, strategic and missile defense systems, and interplanetary spacecraft.' The Bruin alum already had been won numerous industry accolades in her path-breaking career at Lockheed and TRW. One does not, by the way, say 'atta girl,' or 'you go, girl,' for her considerable accomplishment, though surely she would merit and appreciate the gauchely framed praise.

It's a first for a woman: Lockheed exec wins top international aerospace award

Click here for more info on the International von Karman Wings Award

And, will women like Maguire find worth successors soon in another recently noted harbinger out of Claremont? One of the nation's top-ranked but small colleges that churns out elite scientists and engineers has reported a milestone of its own in its 55-year history with its incoming class of 2014: For the first time, women Mudders will outnumber men, 102 on the distaff side (such as the coeds shown in photo at right, participating in fall orientation activities) to 95 lucky lads. A decade's push for diversity gets the credit for slowly bending the gender curve, not just in the school's student population but potentially in the employers and research institutions where the school's graduates typically and successfully land. And, while there's reason to revel in the most recent admission stats, which come atop some 1990s era recruiting in which classes had as few as 20% women in them, well, the reality still is that the overall population among the Mudders is 58% male and 42% female. With a 15% increase in applications this year and the opportunity to pick and choose a gifted bunch of students, the female head of the school promises that affirmative change will remain a priority.

It's a first in 55 years for those Mudders: women outnumber men in class of 2014

Recalling an L.A. link to 'We Shall Overcome,' history

From UCLA

Yankee Doodle. I Feel Like a Motherless Child. Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. Swing Low Sweet Chariot. House of the Rising Sun. Midnight Special. The Sweet By and By. And, of course, We Shall Overcome. If those folk classics roll through the mind at the mere mention of a title, there's some fascinating reading available, which starts with a fine Bruin post about the new 'Reds, Whites and Blues' book by sociologist William Roy (shown at right). In a wide-ranging interview, he touches on iconic names, including Leadbelly, John and Allan Lomax, Pete and Charles Seeger (an early ethnomusicology scholar in Westwood), and, of course, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and an Angeleno, Guy Carawan. Recall Carawan (shown in 1990 Heather Carawan photo at left)? He's the L.A. native, Bruin grad, musician, musicologist and activist who taught the 1901 church hymn at the inaugural meeting of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Raleigh, N.C., thus, linking the legendary 'We Shall Overcome' to the civil rights movement.

In Westwood, a 'Reds, Whites and Blues' recording of folk music's key role in U.S. history 

Feeling a tad mousey about exercise? Might a pill help?

From UCR

Listen up, counch-dwelling, unmotivated and slothful folk: Some mighty mice in Riverside have some lessons to offer us all about exercise, genetics and potential pharmaceutical remedies for the inability of so many of us to get moving, researchers say. In experiments that began in the early 1990s, they began to isolate and breed lab critters based on their capacity to run in those little wire wheels. No, not because they were hoping to find the quintessential, Dilbert-like corporate drone. The researchers say they have proved that the wherewithal for exercise and activity is an inherited, genetically based trait, with lab mice that were high runners producing offspring that also were high runners. This kind of generational study often gets done only among short-lived species, such as fruit-flies or other insects and happens less often among vertebrates. But researchers say they saw gender-based differences in the generations of lab mice most inclined to be athletic, that is that voluntarily chose to take a spin in the ol' wheel: females achieved daily distance by speed alone, whereas males ran fast and long. Hmmm. So what might this mean for two-legged sluggards? Researchers say it may lead to a pill to target genes so people get more active and enjoy it, too.

Capacity for activity found to be inherited trait, with prospect of pharmaceutical adjustment

Nervous about quakes? Roll alongs with these readings...

From UCI & Caltech

To those of us perched oh so precariously upon one of the planet's seismically active zones, every shudder of the ol' house and every low rumble in a building, even if just caused by a passing big rig, becomes a pause for concern. So, of course, seismologists and their work have become another kind of Los Angeles, um, rock stars? So, while major media already have stirred the locals with the big news out of a recent study about the frequency of major temblors on the San Andreas fault, the folks in Irvine provide some interesting fill on that work and on Lisa Grant Ludwig, a key researcher in it. Hint: Ludwig (shown at left in photo by Daniel A. Anderson / university communications) can look at a little ridge and know it's part of an ancient earthquake fault and, thus, not allow her family on a tourist trip to dine at a tiny cantina that sits nearby. And, for those more technically inclined, the folks in Pasadena, meantime, provide details on their high-powered work with computational scientists and geophysicists in Texas to model (as illustrated on right) how giant forces deep within the earth move massive, lumbering tectonic plates on the face of the planet, potentially, of course, leading, um, to a lotta shaky, shaky scary stuff for Southern Californians.

We're glad her life's work's all about finding faults

In Pasadena, high-powered computing, geophysics offer new view of tectonic shifts

Obesity, diabetes rates found to soar for all Californians

From UCLA

OMG. Schedule the lipo, cancel the bulgogi burrito fest, get the gym membership and the stock of Jenny stuff in the fridge. Fuggedahbout it, Californians. Despite the stereotypes of a Golden State filled with tan, fit folk, Bruin researchers have joined with other health experts to warn loudly that a majority of the residents of the nation's most populous state are obese or overweight and more than 2 million of us have diabetes. And while ginormous public health efforts have been expended to let us know that not only are there calamitous health consequences to the fat, sugar, unhealthy, pound adding and diabetes triggering diets, they're costing gazillions, well, an estimated $24 billion for diabetes and $21 billion for obesity. All segments of society are affected, with diabetes a special scourge for the poor, less educated, Latinos and African Americans, and that affliction as well as excess poundage a growing problem, too, for more affluent, better educated Californians. And can't we do something about our couch potato kids, with more than a quarter of adolescents found to be overweight or obese. Diet and exercise, of course, are two remedies for the twin banes of diabetes and obesity or being overweight.

Twin scourges hit all but especially hard at teens, poor, less educated, Latinos, African Americans

Click here to read full report on 2 Calif. unhealthy 'epidemics'

Click here for interactive maps, full info on who's behind obesity, diabetes study